Darkest Waters

An ancient and implacable evil turns its attention upward.

Saints

The gods do nor enter Kor, or influence the world directly with their power. Instead, they elevate mortal agents to act as an emissary between them and their faithful. In life, these mortal agents work to spread the will of their god, and recruit new worshipers to the fold. In death, their spirit merges with the Planar boundary and becomes a permanent conduit. Removed from the passage of time, they enjoy an almost perfect union with their deity, channeling Divine power to the faithful, and prayers back to their god. These conduits are called Saints.

It is possible for any mortal faithful to become a Saint, if they are directly responsible for drawing new worshipers to a god. This can lead to declarations of heresy, religious wars, and great strife among the faithful. Some gods even encourage this. For example, followers of Saints of Kord are famous for bloody schisms that thin the ranks on both sides. Kord receives prayers from both factions, through the established Saint and the new one, and is further glorified in the martial exploits of those factions. Even less warlike deities almost always benefit from schisms among their followers. The aftermath of such faction conflicts tend to make the remaining faithful much more fervent in their prayers and proselytizing.

The races of Kor almost universally pray to Saints rather than gods. In fact, only Elves and Dragons pray directly to their gods, rather than to representatives. These races still venerate pious and powerful members of their species, but not as a conduit to the gods. There is a price to pay for this close relationship with the divine. Neither elves or dragons can merge with the timeless paradise that is the Planar boundary. Nor can they pass beyond to a true afterlife, until they have made a significant enough mark with their lives that others of their race revere them as great ancestors, or an ancestor already in the afterlife elevates them. They remain trapped inside the boundary as ghostly observers, aware of the passage of time, working to gain either fame or ancestral aid. If they have not made a sufficient mark in their life, then only a venerated elf or dragon can sponsor their passage to the afterlife.

This means that, while Elves and Dragons do not gain spells from their Venerated ancestors, they do cultivate relationships with them. If they die without achieving venerated status, they then appeal to their ancestors in the afterlife to aid their crossing. It is not uncommon for an Elven or Dragon ghost to spend centuries trapped in the world, working with extremely limited power to carry out tasks for a Venerated ancestor and earn favor. Among the other implications of this fact is that neither species views the death of the body as the end of life. It is just another step along the path. Elves and Dragons both have very inscrutable funerary rites, from the perspective of other races. Both races know that they might encounter the deceased again, as a ghostly echo of themselves. Often, these ghostly traces will be carrying out some mission for a venerated ancestor, hoping to curry favor. Or they are still working to build their legend to the point where those among the living begin venerate them on their own merits.